She stopped on Monday in the village of Mullinavat in County Kilkenny, Ireland, to investigate the smell. It is believed that the man she found dead in the trunk of the car had rented the vehicle just before the customer who found the body, the irish mirror reports.
The woman lives nearby and is in her twenties.
The man who was found dead was 40 years old and from Waterford, near where she stopped.
There had been a Garda appeal to his whereabouts after he was reported missing.
He had been missing for two weeks before being tragically found dead in the GoCar rental on Monday.
A source close to the family of the woman who made the sad discovery said: “She picked up the car at one of the GoCar depots and was only a short drive to where she was headed, the village of Mullinavat, I would say about five miles.
“While driving she noticed a strange smell, she didn’t know what it was, thought it smelled like petrol and thought it could be coming from the car’s engine when she started the car.
“But it wouldn’t go away, so she stopped the car when she got to Millivant and there she made the shocking discovery that there was a dead man’s body in the trunk. She was stunned, the gardai was then called and they took it from there.”
The Irish Mirror asked Europcar, GoCar’s parent company, if cars were cleaned or serviced between rentals, or if the cars were checked to make sure nothing had been left behind by a previous renter.
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Gardai announced Tuesday that a missing person request for the dead man had been withdrawn.
The original missing persons appeal was issued on 8 July.